Nan Desu Kan 2016

A quick reminder to our readers: Nan Des Kan is this weekend!  Have a look at the schedule and program here. We'll be in attendance, walking the floor, attending panels and interviewing guests. Hope to see you there!

The Professional Gamer - August 29, 2016

Hello readers! I have a very short article for you this week. I am out of town for the weekend at the Fort Collins Comic Con, helping Crystal with her vendor table. If I have learned nothing else this weekend, it is that Fort Collins has even more beer than I imagined.  The convention went really well. Maybe not as many sales as we might have hoped, but a lot of very friendly fans. I wasn’t able to spend a lot of time outside of the vendors hall, but everything at the convention seemed to be well organized and efficient. I hope that we can come back again next year.

In other geeky happenings, I’ve spent some of my time this weekend reading some of the comics that I’ve purchased at past conventions. I have a bad habit of late with regards to buying comics, but not getting around to reading them. Therefore, I’m glad that sitting at a table for most of the weekend afforded me some dedicated time for reading.  This weekend I read Second Quest, Friends with Boys, In Real Life, and the first to issues of Flat Track Furies.  Since the first three are full length novels, I’ll hold off discussing them for separate posts. Let’s talk about Flat Track Furies. 

The comic is written and drawn by Moriah Hummer, and centers on Molly, derby player by day, monster hunter by night. Molly and her team, the Nuclear City Furies, play a rough game at the rink, then, take out some of the monsters that have begun appearing on the city streets.  Issues 1 and 2 are available for purchase at Shopify and Issue 1 is available digitally on Comixology. I have also seen Hummer at several Colorado area conventions.

These first two issues provide a quick introduction to the characters and world that they inhabit. The Furies seem well characterized and remind me of some of the Derby Girls that I’ve met in the past. With only two relatively short issues available at this point, the characters seem a bit lacking in depth. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone fleshed out a little bit more in the future. The art in the first issue is a little shaky, as though Hummer is still finding her characters, but gets a lot more solid in Issue 2. I enjoy the higher contrast art with some spots of pink to highlight some items.   Overall, it is a fun read.

The Professional Gamer - August 22, 2016

Back to a relatively normal week at work, and I've had a bit more time to have fun again this week. Even with biking to work, which takes about twice as long as driving, I was able to make some substantial progress in video games. And I'm looking forward to some fun convention time in the next few weeks. Ready? Let's go!

In the world of Elite: Dangerous, I've finally saved enough money for my next ship. I'm at the point of spending the next hours or so cruising around the universe to find my new ship and all the equipment that I need to outfit it to my needs. I'm excited that I'll be increasing my earning potential, and spending some time in a slightly more manuverable and fun ship again.

Next week, I'll be heading up to the Fort Collins Comic Con with Crystal, where she'll be selling some of her art and comics and I'll be helping her out.  I'm also hoping to spend a little bit of time looking around the convention, meeting some artists, and talking about comics with other fans.  This is only the conventions second year, but hopefully everything goes fairly well.

With that in mind, I hope to see you all again next week.  Have a great time, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - August 15, 2016

Hello readers! This has been the week were I spent most of my time away from home.  In fact, I was in Hawaii to visit a project site.  But, I was away from most of games and media for the week.  But let's talk a little bit about what I did do.

Hilo reminded me a lot of my time in the smaller towns of New Zealand, just a little more tropical and with more palm trees.  But there are lots of tiny roads, including one lane bridges, and the underlying current of a Polynesian culture.  I was able to spend some time hunting for Pokemon while I was there.  And due to the different real world environment, I was able to catch a lot of pokemon that I haven't seen near my home.

That's all I've really had time for this week.  Have a great week, and game on!

The Professional Gamer - August 8, 2016

Hello readers!  I've had another good week at my new job (including having an extra day off today, yay! for compressed schedule!).  And, I found out on Monday that I'll be doing some travel much sooner than I originally expected.  That is to say, I'm travelling to Hawaii this week to do some field work and help guide some construction activity.  It's going to be a super fast turn around and probably leave me exhausted from jet lag, but I think the whole thing is going to be a lot of fun.  Anyways, let's talk about the fun that I've had this week.

Another week means more episodes of Steven Universe, and they continue the pattern of being both fun and emotionally difficult.  I've yet to watch the latest episode, but it sounds like it will continue along the problem of emotionally difficult themes.  Avoiding spoilers has been rather difficult today.

With my day off today, I had some time to play Elite: Dangerous again, and I'm only about 10 million credits away from upgrading my ship.  My previous estimates were based on faulty data, which is unfortunate.  At least I'll only have to do a few more hours of trade loops to get everything together.  If it weren't for the travel this week, I'd be able to get it finished this week.  But, I'm really not that far from finishing it, and looking forward to getting in the next level of ship.

I've not had nearly as much time for Pokemon Go since I've been in an office most of the day, compared to that week that I had off.  But, I've still made a little progress and am now only a little way away from level 20.

That's all I have for this week.  I should be back by next weekend and able to put together another article then.  So look forward to that.  Have a great week, and game on!